Search through our articles

Bacon Roll Politics

Dear reader, as proof of my competence and man-of-the-people status I am heroically this morning eating a bacon roll. Georgia Graham yesterday reported earnestly to high-brow Telegraph readers: “Nick Clegg gave Ed Miliband a lesson in how to eat a bacon sandwich, tucking into a roll live on air.

The Deputy Prime Minister was handed the sandwich on his regular call-in show on LBC radio. He said he would try and eat it with “dignity” and asked for some ketchup.”

I can reveal that I had mine with brown sauce.

In between ‘Look a Princess!” media coverage which treats Kate Middleton like a brood-mare, the level of political debate in English politics is astonishing. Why are we discussing bacon sandwiches? Partly it’s because you couldn’t slip a sliver of grilled pork between the policy agendas of these people. Lineup 1000 people and ask them what Ed Miliband stands for and I guarantee you no-one could tell you. This is a political culture void of anything to talk about bar it’s bitchy infighting and celebrity feudalism.

The much venerated Simon Jenkins wrote a pile of nonsense in what’s probably still Britain’s best newspaper yesterday. Here’s some choice extracts:

“A yes vote would clearly instigate a crisis. Scotland would need a new constitution and a distinct legal personality. But that is just a start.”
A constitution! A constitution?! The affrontery.

“Salmond has already said he wants to share the monarchy, citizenship, an open border, a common currency, trade and energy policy – in other words, a sizeable chunk of what constitutes a modern state.”

Doh! This is like some massive constitutional penny has just dropped. Has Jenkins been in Narnia for the last three years?

“Edinburgh is awash with debate over how much more devo-max can mean short of independence.”

It’s not Simon, it’s really not. The one thing no-one is talking about all is the non-existent Devo Nano proposals.

Catalonia, the Channel Islands, Sicily and Monaco are cited. The trouble, say the Nuffield authors, is that when you set aside nationalist rhetoric, “conceptually it is hard to distinguish devo-max from an independent country that has entered into a confederation with a larger neighbour”.

Well these Nuffield scholar are very scholarly and all but they seem to be a) considering Devo Max proposals that don’t exist and any that have been put forward in the past have always been absent of control over absolutely key areas of sovereignty, such as control over natural resources, foreign affairs and defence. This is nonsense.

“Assuming Cameron and co mean to keep their pledge of “more autonomy”, they are effectively telling Scots: “Reject an unreal independence and we’ll concede an unreal union.” Either way, you will get all you can reasonably expect.”

That’s a massive assumption based on vague mutterings. Few would trust ‘Cameron and Co’ as far as they could fling them. Jenkins finishes with a flourish: “The pity is that it takes a stupid referendum to force London to concede it.” How stupid of us to have a process that’s been ongoing for the best part of 100 years, based on an agreed process and a mandate from our elected government.

Bacon sandwich politics just shows how cretinous and stupid the debate has become, which is how the toff-supporting London media like it. Then there’s no danger of discussing the NHS, tax avoidance, falling standards of living, etcetera

I would never vote Labour because they take us for granted but feel sorry for Miliband – he is now being persecuted just for being a bit different in way which reminds me of appalling treatment of Neil Kinnock.

On the principle that the people get the politicians they deserve and can be arsed voting for, maybe it should be a bacon sandwich in charge at Number 10?

I read Jenkin’s claptrap earlier remembering his last postcard on Scotland from a Swiss Cottage coiffee house was just as silly. Another “darn sarf” hack way out of touch with what he thinks of as “north Britain.”

The support for basic republican issues crumbled. The simple and sensible step of taking the UJ of the flag has lost momentum.

Why? That is beyond me.

It will be part of the unionist campaign “A few people on foodbank support and the economic burden being placed on the most disadvanted in society must surely be better than giving up a princess (a princess with a baby prince! for goodness sake)”

In a way it’s reassuring that the Venerable Simon Jenkins and other English journalists are as bad at their job as most Scottish ones. I wonder if journalists in other countries are as lacklustre as ours and our neighbour’s.

Yes Iain there are.Try Australian journalists with Murdoch mob at the helm. The level of public debate in any arena print or tv is appalling. Most of the so called journalists seem to be on some kind of new giggling drug for no matter the subject it is dealt with as if a joke. No wonder we have a new kind of fascism on the rise for this is a country which is being swallowed by US at a gargantuan rate. There is something seriously wrong with all English speaking so called democracies. Scotland has a chance to take a different path with a Yes vote so hope hope hope it does in September.

Regarding global levels of journalistic integrity, does it but patchily exist?

They are not cried “hacks” for nothing.

As to the “giggling” Murdoch propagandists Down Under, who is the Antipodean hysteric on BBC World “News” – the dementedly giggling gerbil on crack cocaine who seems to have replaced an equally dysfunctionally gibbering Anglo on magic mushrooms?

Is this propensity towards theatrics now a compulsory Journalism 101 class along with Lying Through Your Teeth As A Core Journalistic Ethic?